Con Anima
by Missie2
Summary: Knowing that pearls do think and feel for themselves, Lapis finds new expression in her pearl's music. Continuation of the 'Soul' story in Chapter Four of A String of Pearls.


_**Con Anima**_

Another wee drabble, can't work on much at the mo, this is being written on the road. People wanted to hear more about the pearl from the 'Soul' chapter of A String of Pearls, so here's the follow up.

…..

" _ **Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent."**_ _  
_ _—_ _ **Victor Hugo**_

It was hard to believe, but Lapis did consider that maybe Pearl loved the symphonaria more than Lapis ever had.

Once upon a time, the symphonaria had been her whole world. Her friends had been brought to her side by the music, the money she earned with her playing bought her home and all her possessions. She had wrapped the music around herself like clothing, melded it to part of her being. She truly had believed that her soul was in the music.

Now, she wasn't so sure. The music was still the driving force in her life, and she mourned its loss every day, but she began to see herself in a new light. She had been skilled, undoubtedly, and the music she had made was beautiful, but...

Pearl achieved a kind of purity in her playing that Lapis could have only dreamed of. The kind of playing untainted by ambition or jealousy or the knowledge that anyone needed to be impressed with her efforts. Lapis stayed, Lapis watched, always, but Pearl might as well have been playing to an empty room.

When she wasn't playing, she spoke only when Lapis asked a question. She performed her tasks with silent efficiency, blank-faced, although Lapis rarely asked her to do anything that wasn't music-related these days. She displayed no joy, no sadness, no terror, not even when the most recent of explosions happened not far from their home.

When she was playing, it was like she morphed into a completely different creature, one Lapis could barely recognize. With each rising cadence emotion was written across the strings; Lapis could tell instantly that she was happy, or sad, or angry, within just the first few chords.

A lesser gem might have been jealous. Lapis was glad that her love of music enabled her to rise above such feelings. She had felt more alive this last orbit than she had since losing her own gift for playing.

Instead, she threw herself into sharing her experience with Pearl. It took a while, but she dragged out every holo-form musicbar she had saved from her performances and staked them up at the symphonaria.

"I want to hear your take on this one," she would say, ushering Pearl to the instrument.

And sure enough, she would discover new dimensions in the songs when filtered through Pearl's talented fingers. A note of the bittersweet in the slow romantic melody, a playful rise in chords in an otherwise furious clashing score, a soothing pattern in a repetitive sonorous adagio. More than once she was moved to tears, sensing an underlying sadness in the notes and empathizing.

The encroaching paranoia about the nature of pearls reached Lapis' ears, but she shut it out. She had known for some time that pearls were not emotionless automatons as advertised, and anyone who chose to believe that they were was a fool. She squirrelled them both away in her home; nobody visited anymore, and they had so much music to explore together, so why even bother with the rest of Homeworld?

They had been in this state of isolation for almost half an orbit when Lapis, roused from her rest pod thanks to some loose wiring, stumbled out into the main hall that held the symphonaria. She wasn't surprised to see that Pearl was there, strumming a pretty tune.

What did surprise her was the fact that Pearl was _singing._

Very softly, almost inaudible, but she was definitely singing. It was a counter-melody to the tune plucked out on the symphonaria, they melded together beautifully. The words she sang made no sense, but the purpose behind the song was clear as day. It was a message.

 _Where are you now?_

 _We miss you._

 _It's been so long._

 _Please be safe._

A fellow performer, one who was just about to take retirement, had once told Lapis that the secret to truly amazing music was pain. Pain filtered through the fingers and translated into music so that the whole world could hear and know. Lapis had nodded politely but secretly thought it was ridiculous.

But hearing the yearning in the song Pearl played, and feeling the tears slip down her own cheeks, she finally understood.

…..

The song I based this fic on is this one: watch?v=OjB3SQ1EXAU


End file.
